cue fog machines, cue twilight zone music, he's back again with yet another stupid episode of how to mutilate your beautiful expensive guitar's sound, and obiterate the effect of them beautiful expensive toneful tubes..

SUBmitted for your approval or disproval in which case i don't care so go away and soak thy head in a bog or something....

here's uncle ed's overdriver. my partner-in- crime in the luthier thing asked me if i could make him a box that would "sound just like my guitar and amp, only about 3-4 notches louder"... so i said ya want it to sound like your guitar goes to 13 for solos? he said yeah.so just to make it safe, this goes to 15. thats one more than he required. quite a lot, actually, for his purposesbut i digress.

here's a vero and a schematic for it. as you can see it's a fairly simple overdriver. it sounds a lot like just reaching over and turning your amp up. mild overdrive on its own, but enough to kick a clean fender (which eddie plays) into overdrive. it sounds great in my marshall too tho, so hopefully it will sound good for other applications, too.

schematic and vero layout. the vero isn't built (in this version) yet but the circuit is together on the one i originally worked up for him.believe it or not we tweaked it in til it sounded good during a 2 hour phone convo. weird planet.

which leads to....what do ya get when ya cross an NPN GE FAL treble booster and uncle ed's overdrive?ya get MONKEY BALLS!!

this thing is SICK. the combo of the two together is pretty slammin. into a clean fender or solid state amp, ya get an octave up fuzz ya can play chords with that will track most of the neck with buckers or single coils, neck or bridge. into a just breaking up amp it sounds like a really thick overdrive with a strong upper harmonic.into a cranked marshall ya get ooh for days.i was gonna put a switch in to put the treb boost part in line or out, but once i heard it i said fuck it. you can do that if ya want.you can of course swap out the q1 1k resistor for a pot... wire it just like the front of a fuzzface, but you'd probably just leave the pot cranked.ac128 for q1, or any old ge. lowish gain npn. you could sub a silicon in here too, just limit the gain with a smallish e resistor.q2, any old si that ya like that's npn. i prefer gain ranges in the 200 area here, but it doesn't sound bad with a darlington. (at least in just the overdrive alone part)

so anyways two for one deal. three, really, as ya can build the fal, the monkey balls or the uncle ed's. the fal is the input of the monkey balls to the first 4.7m resistor between the 4.7n cap and the 22n one.

polarity protection in there, pull down resistance added, you COULD probably get away with an LED clipper in parallel with the snubber cap on q2 or before the output cap to ground, but i didn't try that yet. would probably up the distortion and noise a bit tho.

why monkey balls? long story. some people would get butthurt if i explained it so best left unsaid

FUCK! just noticed i forgot the snubber on q2 of the monkey balls schem. 100p and ya can't go wrong

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace."

I never drove a B3 Jimi, but I'll take yer word for it. I think I'll try one PNP after a dozen other gizmo projects on the table. That includes the Ruby Doobie that I was waiting for a couple parts for. Should have that one barking by Sat.

i ditched r9 and 10 and c5 and replaced 'em with a jumper instead. a little more high end bite. also ditched one of the polarity diodes, and no need for the treble bleed on the balls pot.

works great. kinda sounds like if a harmonic percolator was an octave up. if ya get it set just right, it "chimes" when ya hit it hard. kinda cool!if anybody takes the plunge, let me know.... SPTWPjP to come soon

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace."

ok more monkeying. it is most definitely an octave up. and a fuzz. and an overdrive. ya get the octave up on your treble pickup pretty much all over the neck into a clean amp with humbuckers. if ya turn the guitar down, it's a classic overdrive. it gets quieter, but doesn't really clean up beyond a point.the ge diodes really helped bring the octave out more.the leds made minimal effect tonally, BUT they seemed to cut a lot of the noise and hash from the sound so i decided to add them.moved a couple things around, blah blah... i would say now it's good.you can get some sick sounds with it, ya don't need to roll your tone knob down or play on your neck pickup, and it sustains fairly well too.into a dirty amp it takes on totally different characters. i gotta get some video. i was gonna box it up today, but spent a couple hours swapping out the tailpiece on my doubleneck, leveling/crowning the frets and then restringing the pig.anyways.. here ya go.. verified, too. if any brave soul ventures down this path, let me know. i think if ya like fuzz and octave ups, you may like this.ya still get the octave if ya leave the diode clippers out. in fact, if ya roll the monkey knob down some it gets fairly clean.the leds not only have kind of a noise reduction effect, but they make the overdrive function work better when ya roll the guitar down. and yes, you can play chords with it. even cowboy chords. try THAT with most octave fuzzes!! beware, this has enough ouput to fry your tubes into submission, or your transistors.

this layout is VERIFIED. i'll post a schem when i get a chance.

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace."

ok, here ya go. final schematic. works great. boxing it when i finish typing.this and the last vero above are verified and working perfect, so if ya want a somewhat different octave fuzz, check it out.

SPTwPjP to come soon

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace."

the thing with being a mad scientist in a laBORRRatory is that ya get a little flighty sometimes. so many circuits, so few years left....

again, my apologies.

the unca ed's thing works great here, but he's having problems with dirty power and rfi bombardment. i tried adding a humongo cap across the power supply jack. not so good an idea. it appears to be making it motorboat at his place. so i'm gonna adjust the caps in the power supply down some. thinking 10u instead of 100, and ditch the 220 across the power in jack. that should take care of the motorboating.

or possibly add a high pass filter before the transistor with a cap in series with a small resistor to ground instead, and see what becomes of it.and a low pass filter after the transistor to eliminate a bit of hiss. gotta read up on frequencies and how to deal with them a bit, and mess with it on the breadboard.

also gonna try adding the hard clipper of a pair of LED's as a soft clipper between b&c,.. seems to add a bit of compression and gating without messing with the sustain or tone. maybe a hint less distortion even... its weird. seemed to clarify it with the monkey balls version.

i gotta local guitar show this weekend in berlin ct so i'm busy getting [s]crap[/s] stuff together ( its not crap, but stuff i never use has gotta go!!) for that. i hope to breadboard this whole thing today and see what's what. just a daunting task cuz there's so much crap all over the old bench

anyways... onwards n upwards, or somethin like dat

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace."